


Maybe I'll Get Drunk, Again

by quiteliterally



Series: Home is Whenever I'm With You [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, but it's okay because happy!harry made it okay, harry is like sunshine, louis is broken, thats pretty much it to be honest, there's some angst and a lot of sad!louis, they meet in a bathroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:09:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteliterally/pseuds/quiteliterally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And maybe Louis was never going to be fixed, and maybe this thing with this pretty boy was going to go nowhere, and maybe Louis hadn't gotten more than six hours of undisturbed sleep in the past week, but he felt like this boy would make him feel like a person again, make him feel like he mattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe I'll Get Drunk, Again

**Author's Note:**

> i started this because i was sad and finished it because i felt even sadder, and now i feel a little bit happier. Also my love for coffee shop!au's won out in the end so basically that's the main reason they meet there 
> 
> also i was thinking of "drunk" when i thought of this so that's where the idea came from

Louis sighed as he woke, once again feeling used and dirty and sleazy. He hated himself for doing it, but it was the only way he could keep his mind off of him. He picked his clothes up from the ground, quickly pulling them on and extracted three fifties from the wallet left on the bedside locker, before tossing it back on the press. Without a glance back to the man still dozing, he slipped on his shoes, still slightly tipsy from the night before, but without unwanted memories tainting his mind. 

Just how he liked it. 

Smiling wryly to himself, he crept out of the strange house, for once optimistic about the rest of the day. 

 

Memories of the night before flooded his mind, quickly causing his good mood to deteriorate. He touched the left side of his head, wincing at the sharp pain. He recalled a bar fight, how some guy had started calling him a 'fag', a 'fairy'. He threw a punch, catching the man on the jaw. But he was much stronger than Louis, and broke a bottle off the side of his head. Which explained the pain, Louis supposed.

He used to think that hurting other people would make him stronger, more powerful, make it so he wouldn't have to grow attached, knock down the walls he had spent so long building. But it didn't, and he opened up, and now he was falling to pieces, because sometimes a person's past is so awful that it's not possible to stay with them any more. And he hated himself for it, hated that he kept pushing and pushing at people until they left, or hurt him in return, or both. And he hated that, in the end of it, someone had caused him all the pain. Karma's a bitch.

Louis thought he had learned that pushing people away would just add pain on to his life. But obviously he hadn't. Not well enough to know this time round. 

 

He had always tried to keep this, this mask on, but then someone came along, and he destroyed it, tore it to shreds, along with Louis' trust and Louis wasn't sure he'd able to put it back on. His head was muddled with angry thoughts, all centered around the same person, but he couldn't bring himself to even think the name, it hurt even more than the hate. He suddenly wished he wasn't so drunk, that he could just think straight, and with clarity. The cool London air was something of a help, but Louis would need something stronger to remove the buzzing. Coffee. He'd get a coffee. 

He pushed open the door to the nearest cafe, and stood in line behind a tall woman and her son. The little boy smiled at Louis, an innocent, childish smile, and Louis felt his heart sting from the loss of those moments. He missed the innocence of childhood. He wanted to tell the little boy that falling in love was a myth, that there was no such things as happy endings. He didn't think that it would bode well with the child's mother, though.

 

And yet, he knew that it was all his fault. It was his own fault that everyone he loved came to leave him, and sometimes, he actually liked not having to buy presents on Valentine's Day, or make a big effort for birthdays. But why was this one guy hurting him so much? Had it been because Louis had finally thought that someone could have helped him? That someone could have made him happy again? Or was it because Louis was pretty certain he was completely and utterly in love with the guy, only to find that his feelings weren't replicated? And he should have known, he should have known better than to trust someone with his deepest and darkest secrets, the reasons behind his walls, the reasoning behind why he didn't trust easily, why he never called his family on the weekends, and ignored their calls when they tried. Why he never sent out Christmas cards, except to Zayn and Liam and Niall. He should have known that something was coming when he started holding Louis like he was fragile, like he was some antique vase that could break apart at any given moment. He should have known when they cuddled together watching shitty reality TV shows that there was something coming. 

And yet. 

And yet, Louis convinced himself that there was nothing, that they were fine, that nothing would have changed. 

And yet, it was still such a shock to arrive home at his flat to find the spare key and a note that simply said “I'm sorry, but I can't do it, Lou” written on it. His calls and texts went unanswered. 

And yet, despite drinking himself silly every night, going home with the first guy that gave him a lust-filled look, then stealing the man blind, he didn't feel any better. He thought people drank to feel better, but Louis always just came home with a banging headache and a stinging heart every night. 

 

He ordered a plain black coffee, and pulled out one of the bills he had robbed that morning. The server barely batted an eyelid, taking the money and handing Louis his change and telling him to continue down the counter to collect his beverage. Louis just nodded. 

He grabbed a seat towards the back of the café, relishing in the warmth. The heat of his flat had been switched off a few months back, and Louis didn't have enough to pay for it to be switched back on. And, anyway, he had had him to keep him warm on the colder nights, and even when he couldn't come over, Louis had had so many of his jumpers which were always too big on Louis' tiny frame. Now he had nothing but painful memories to keep him company on the lonely nights. 

 

He was dying, he was sure of it. Or, maybe that was a bit overly dramatic, considering everybody, at every moment, is dying. But he could feel a part of him slipping away more and more each day, like they were drowning in the memories of what it had been like to be happy for once. 

He was just taking a sip of his hot drink that one of the stinging memories came back, causing him to choke on the coffee. It was the day that they had their first fight, and Louis was so angry, and was barely saying anything, but he seemed to just take words out of thin air, as if he could read Louis' scattered mind. He even said that he was going to leave, if Louis kept up his stupid facade and all his walls and defensive mechanisms . But Louis told him everything, and, okay, it had been at a later date, but he told him, and he still fucking left. Just like that, as if Louis had meant absolutely nothing. As if Louis was just another of his flings, ones that he would pry into the life of, open them bare to the world, earn their trust, then just leave, for them to somehow pick up the pieces of their broken heart. But Louis had thought the world of him, thought that he could give Louis everything he couldn't give himself. 

 

As he finally cleared his windpipe, he contemplated another night getting as absolutely inebriated as he possibly could. He supposed that that was one way of dealing, getting drunk, hooking up with random guys, all in the hopes that one of them will see past his boundaries too, that they would try and heal his open wounds. And it wasn't often any more that he was given any displays of love, or some sort of affection. His cat had ran away a few weeks ago, and Louis could hardly have blamed her anyway. He half wished that she would have brought him along, as sad as that sounded. 

But getting drunk, and feeling some branch of love meant that he would have to do the Morning After, that he would have to steal from their wallet, and walk home on the freezing morning air with a pounding head and an aching heart. He wasn't completely sure that a full week of hooking up with strangers was a particularly good idea, as much as getting drunk appealed to him right now. 

He glanced down at his phone, and groaned when it only read 10.28 AM. More time to spend alone, pondering on what could have been.

Of course, he could call Zayn, or Liam, because he knew that both of them were worrying about him. And they were probably too busy wrapped up in each other to answer the phone even if Louis did call. He wondered what Niall was doing, or rather, who Niall was doing. If he'd want to maybe meet up. Of course, that thought went out the window when he remembered Niall got a job the day before and was starting today. 

Louis might have hated how happy they all were, if he wasn't so happy for them himself. Like, Liam and Zayn had been so scared to make the first move for so long, so it really wasn't a surprise to anyone when they told everybody they were dating. And Niall had been looking for a job for so long, that even though this new place wasn't exactly paying well, he still had a job. 

Sighing, he drowned the rest of his coffee and stood up. He was so tired. Of the heart break, of the lying and stealing, of the pretending he was okay. And it wasn't helping that he couldn't sleep, because every time he closed his eyes at night, all the memories of the two of them lying together, not saying anything, just staring at each other, well, they hurt. And he still wasn't used to only one person breathing, one heartbeat, one person left in the bed. One person left alone. One person still so caught up and in love with the person that left that he wouldn't move on, that he couldn't move on. Louis despised the person he had become. This weak shell of a person. 

The coffee shop was busier now than it had when he first arrived, probably because London was finally waking up. He supposed now would be a good time to leave, to let someone else have his table. Firstly, though, he stopped by the bathroom, if not to use it but to wash something of the filth he couldn't help but feel from the night before off. 

He was just drying his hands when someone came out of the stall nearest him and tripped, somehow managing to fall on Louis.

“Oops,” this brown headed klutz laughed, scarlet beginning to colour his cheeks. 

Louis was kind of mesmerised, replying with a “hi” before he had properly thought about it. “I mean, um, it's okay.” He offered this tall green-eyed stranger a timid smile, “Hi, I'm Louis.”

He smiled back, an open, toothy smile. Louis didn't think this boy could ever have felt any sort of heartache or more than a minutes worth of sadness. “Harry. Nice to meet you Louis!”

And maybe Louis' heart fluttered a bit at that, and maybe he forgot that he was broken material, and that it would be difficult to find someone that would put up with it, but the way this stranger was smiling at him, the way he didn't seem to have any inhibitions about meeting strangers in bathrooms, and accidentally falling on them, Louis thought that maybe it would be possible to be happy again, even if it was only going to be for a little while. Even if it was only in this moment, with this too-tall boy staring down at him with a stupid grin on his face. 

His smile dropped then, and already Louis missed it, wanted this boy, this Harry person, to always have a smile that looked like sunshine on his face. So maybe he wasn't thinking when he asked Harry if he was doing anything currently. And maybe he wasn't thinking about how scruffy he looked, or how tired he was, because when Harry smiled at him, those big dimples that Louis kind of really wanted to sleep in forever, he didn't regret opening his mouth. 

And maybe Louis was never going to be fixed, and maybe this thing with this pretty boy was going to go nowhere, and maybe Louis hadn't gotten more than six hours of undisturbed sleep in the past week, but he felt like this boy would make him feel like a person again, make him feel like he mattered.

Make him feel loved again. 

And it was brash, and it was probably too early to think about things like that, and he knew that it was the same way he had gotten so hurt in the beginning, but Louis knew that this boy wouldn't be capable of breaking someone's heart, not when he looked like sunshine personified, not when he looked like he would start purring if Louis ran his hands through his hair. 

Maybe it would work out, Louis thought as the two of them made their way out of the shop, turning towards the park a few minutes down the street, talking as if they'd known each other for years, and maybe it wouldn't. But right here, right now, Louis felt as if happiness could become a normal thing, something that he wouldn't have to pretend about. 

And that was quite alright with him, to be honest.

**Author's Note:**

> i might add a few timestamps onto this, so keep a look out! my tumblr is louswiliam & thoughts are always appreciated!!


End file.
